For the Damaged
by Misery's-Toll
Summary: A series of AU one-shots and drabbles, mostly SasuSaku. #4: You two are like peanut-butter and jelly. When you're together you're unbearably gooey, but meant for each other.
1. Timer

**Timer  
**  
 **A/N:** This will be a series of one-shots, some of which are AU. Others take place in the actual Naruto canon, but diverge from the manga after Sasuke's betrayal.

I originally wrote this in July of 2011, so if it looks familiar to my followers, that's why. I took it down awhile back to make some major revisions and forgot to ever put it back up.

 **Summary:** AU written for the 2011 SasuSaku month prompt "Change." AU.

 **Song Inspiration:** "Champagne Supernova" by Oasis

* * *

If he had to describe her in one word, it would've been _annoying_. There was so much about her that could be quickly categorized with that one word: the way he could tell how she was feeling just by looking at her, the high-pitched sound of her little girl's giggle, how she was always trying to get him to enjoy "the little things." How she made his heart beat faster. And for God's sake, her hair was _pink_.

If she had to describe him in one word, it would've been _insufferable_. He was self-centered and entirely too proper for his age, always raining on her parade and making her look bad in front of the grown-ups. Unfortunately, they were eleven, and the worst word she could really come up with was _ugh_.

So that was how they grew up together. With Sakura notoriously _annoying_ , and Sasuke thoroughly _ugh_.

(But really, if she'd been allowed use two words, the second would have been _beautiful_.)

* * *

Sasuke loved sports and the great outdoors, so the choice to send him off to summer camp seemed obvious. Sakura would have rather spent her vacation gossiping and painting her toenails with her best friend, but her parents found it easier to get her out of sight where they wouldn't have to worry if their prepubescent daughter was getting in to trouble.

But they met because he beat her in a race by tripping her at the last second, and then later she screamed his ear off. What he would remember about it when he was older was that her breath smelled of lemon cough drops.

* * *

One day, before they could be considered friends, Sasuke fell asleep in the sand. Sakura buried him alive up to his throat, giggling and muffling snorts into her gritty fingers. When she was finished, his head poked out from the sandy beach like an unfinished totem pole. The blue of high tide reflecting on his face gave him a sickly pallor, and the evening light's shadows swallowed his eyes into his skull.

When Sasuke woke up half underground, he found Sakura crying over him.

* * *

"Look at this," Sakura said through a mouthful of bread, and pointed to a wilting flower in a patch of grass. She wiped her lips with the back of her hand, and crumbs fell on her shirt.

Sasuke leaned in to get a closer view of the plant, as if expecting to find a carnivorous beetle or a family of tiny people living on its petals.

"It's a flower," he determined, unimpressed, "So what?"

Sakura smiled and gave him a playful slap on the shoulder. "But what does it _remind_ you of?"

Sasuke plucked the flower from the ground, tiny aphids crawling out of the yellow feathered center. He shrugged and handed it to her. "You," he said.

Sakura twirled it in her fingers for a moment and placed it behind her ear for safekeeping. And then, after a moment's thought, she threw the remainder of her sandwich in the grass to be eaten by blackbirds.

"Why?" she asked, and touched the petals against her temple with fondness.

Sasuke sighed. "Why do you think?"

* * *

The summer they turned fifteen, Sakura learned about the sickness. The sickness that would change Sasuke from a handsome, healthy boy into a wasted wraith. That was the summer when the paleness in his skin and the shadows beneath his eyes (that had so irrevocably possessed her heart) began to mean something.

* * *

"It's okay to be scared, you know," she said, sitting on his windowsill with her feet hanging into the night. The air had a brisk winter smell that meant the holidays were coming, but she didn't really feel like celebrating. "You can talk to me."

Sasuke, who had been looking for a CD to play, let out a groan. "Jesus Christ, Sakura. Do you always have to be so annoying? Just mind your own business for once."

Sakura teetered on the sill as her body tried to choose between tears or laughter. She chose the latter, though her body trembled with anxiety. "Yeah," she said, "You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

Later, when she tried to sneak out the front door, she ran into Sasuke's mother, who swayed quietly on the porch swing. The woman let Sakura cry into her lap until she couldn't breathe, and Sasuke listened through his bedroom window and tried not to be sorry.

* * *

After awhile, Sakura didn't go home anymore. She snuck up to his room at night. He let her in through the window after parties she would go to that he couldn't. Parties she came back from with smudged lipstick and eyeliner rimming eyes that were glazed and laughing without humor. Her clothing stunk of pot and she knew it, but when he asked her about it she just smiled and went to sleep on the pile of bean bags in the corner.

He wandered back to bed, and his room was so dark and silent but he couldn't hear her breathing. Was she breathing, was she alive? Even in the moonlight he couldn't see her. She faded into the couch, so small and shrunken. He could never find her. His illness destroyed everything he had, and then it took some more.

* * *

"You've changed," he said on one of those nights, staring at the ceiling through the dark. He could smell the perfume she put on to hide the stench of weed and nicotine, and it itched unpleasantly in his nose.

Sakura sat up, foam balls in the bean bags crackling noisily. "I haven't!" she insisted.

"You have." Sasuke rolled his eyes.

Sakura stayed sitting, and chewed the dry skin from her lipstick-stained mouth. Then, when Sasuke was nearly asleep, she admitted, "...There's a reason."

Sasuke rolled on to his side, and somehow their eyes met, even though they couldn't see. "I know," he said, "I know."

* * *

It wasn't until they were eighteen that the disease really took hold. In those days, he missed more days of school than not, and it quickly became clear he wouldn't graduate with the rest of them. Standing winded him, and breathing winded him almost as badly. Sakura bought him healing crystals that she hung in front of the windows that made his room sparkle. They were annoying and girly, just like her, but Sakura wasn't partying anymore so Sasuke didn't make her take them down.

* * *

"Why do you always come over so late? Some of us like to go to sleep before midnight," Sasuke complained, the light still on so Sakura could finish her Calculus homework. They sat on his bed together, and he picked threads from his comforter to pass the time.

He wasn't tired, but he'd been griping for the past twenty minutes anyway. He was scared of dying and he didn't want her to know. He wanted to grieve alone.

Sakura glanced up at him, chewing the eraser on her pencil. She pulled it from her mouth to point it at him. "Hey, if I don't learn this stuff, who's going to tutor you so you can catch up when you get better?"

Sasuke closed his eyes and breathed through his teeth. "You just don't get it, do you? I'm not going to get better, Sakura. I'm going to get sicker, and sicker, and then I'm going to die."

When he opened his eyes, it was to blink back tears he wasn't prepared for. They were in her eyes, too. She leaned in and kissed him on the mouth, and for some reason it made him smile.

* * *

They kissed a lot, every night for almost a year. When he felt okay they sat on the porch swing and his mother watched through the window with a melancholy smile. If Sakura caught her staring, the woman would bring them lemonade.

Sasuke didn't really like the sticky powdered stuff, but it reminded him of Sakura's cough-drop breath after he tripped her in the sand, so he drank it without complaint.

* * *

They were in his room, drawing the things they missed the most. Sasuke had a seizure and wasn't okay for a long time. It scared Sakura and made her scream and cry, and it was Sasuke's older brother who had to call the doctor. That was when they hired a private nurse, and when Sasuke stopped talking so much. Usually when he did talk, it was to call Sakura annoying and tell her to go home.

Sakura's pictures were of Sasuke, and Sasuke's pictures were of the beach.

* * *

Shortly after graduation, Sakura came by the house with a DVD of a movie Sasuke had wanted to see in theaters but couldn't.

The steps up to his room creaked forebodingly, and when she tried to open the door, it was locked.

"I don't want to see you," he said, curled up on the carpet. With his cheek against the wooden door, his dusty voice vibrated into the knob in her grip. "Go away."

Sakura cringed and retracted her hand to pull it to her mouth. She didn't want to cry. This wasn't about her and she couldn't make it that way.

"I love you," she confessed, a secret she'd so perfectly kept. It was a gift for him, the truth.

At first there was a pregnant pause in which the house's silence screamed in their ears. But soon enough there was the heavy scrape of him struggling to stand, if only to break the quiet.

"Sasuke?" she asked.

"I thought I told you to leave me alone," he replied with a voice like mud, and then he walked away.

* * *

Sakura didn't know what to do without him, so she tried to revisit the old clubs. She got dressed and put on her gilded sunset eye-shadow, her gauzy little dress, and decided maybe she should just go _dancing._

She only got halfway there before turning back. She'd changed somehow, and she didn't really know why.

* * *

He asked for her, even though he didn't mean to. He made his mother cry, even though he didn't mean to.

* * *

"Sasuke," Sakura whispered, and climbed into bed beside him. He was smaller than she was. He was frail stick-and-bones, and when she hugged him to her, he didn't push her away. He just sucked in wispy gasps of air, and tangled his fingers in her shirt.

She crunched a cough-drop between her teeth, and the shards that pricked her tongue tasted like blood and lemonade.

* * *

"IloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyou."

"Shh, shh. Sasuke, it'll be okay."

* * *

When he finally slept, it was morning. He breathed the sweet breath of a child against her throat, and for a moment she let her self imagine it: the dock on the beach leading into the water and the tiny shed where they put on their lifejackets. Little Sasuke laughed in her mind, _Race ya!_

Light streamed through the windows, and she turned and twisted her hands to watch the refracted beams of the healing crystals glitter on her skin.

"I hope heaven is even half as pretty," she said to the boy in her arms. She didn't expect him to wake up again.

* * *

The funeral parlor was grey and had nothing of the safety she always felt in his room. The sooty lashes of his shut eyes cast shadows on his cheeks. She pressed the pad of her thumb to his pale lips, but they didn't smile beneath her touch. An hour later he was underground, pretty white flowers with yellow-feathered centers all that remained of their friendship.

* * *

She drove to the place they used to love, the one in the drawings she had sprawled across her car seat.

The blackbirds no longer felt like friends, pecking the eyeballs out of squirrels in the dirt. The wooden shed that used to hold life jackets let out a groan of anguish, fishing nets hanging like spider webs from the ceiling. She felt too big for her memories.

The sunset lit up the sky like a bruise, spilling red-purple-blue blood and pus into the ocean. There was a quiet destruction in the air. She could feel it in the way the brine filled her lungs and the sand was fire in her shoes.

She kept running, but the water never got any closer.

 _ **END.**_


	2. All I Have of Never

**All I Have of Never**

 **A/N:** This is what happens when I try to force myself to write a high school AU romance as an adult. Indefinitely incomplete. Was going for a manic-pixie-dream-girl vibe.  
 **Summary:** It's mid-autumn when Sasuke meets the girl who's going to change his life. He just doesn't know it yet.  
 **Song Inspiration:** "Makin' Out" by Tree Adams

* * *

The leaves are scattered rainbows on the ground, crackling into dust beneath his checkered Vans. The fissures in the pavement run haywire in crisscrossing hash marks and the longer he stares at the ground the deeper he seems to fall into the optical illusion.

Summer is long gone.

The timer on his watch goes off, beepbeepbeep and the bus will be arriving in 30 seconds. The idiot will be arriving in 45, just in time to have his shirttail get caught in the doors as they slide shut behind him.

Same routine, every day of his pathetic seventeen-year lifespan.

The woodpecker on the telephone poll starts hammering away right on time (7:14 am, no surprises here), and Sasuke can breathe a sigh of relief knowing that the obnoxious rattling will be replaced by the empty-headed chatter of his classmates in just a matter of seconds.

Three. Two. One.

The bus pulls to a squeaking, reluctant halt at the curb. Sasuke has just enough time to smirk at the idiot driver of the car behind the bus (who is frowning and gesturing obscenely) before the sliding doors ease open.

"Zero," Sasuke sighs.

He takes the gargantuan three Watch-Your-Steps into the bus, nods a brief hello at the bus driver, and takes his seat near the middle. Only asshats sit near the back, and only unfortunate idiots like Naruto Uzumaki get socially assigned near the front.

Here he comes.

"Hold the bus!" the blonde shouts, tripping over his untied shoelaces and losing papers to the wind from his unzipped frog backpack. Sasuke could count the seconds to the demise of his shirttail, but instead he closes his eyes and sticks his ear buds in so he can drown himself in music from his brother's old iPod.

He hears the doors whisk shut before the first song plays, and when he opens his eyes, there's no idiot staring down the aisle. The bus pulls away from the curb and Sasuke watches with widened eyes as Naruto Uzumaki is left in the dust.

"What a moron," Suigetsu says, laughing with a pointed grin. The guy is sprawled across the entire bench adjacent to Sasuke's, his identical checkered Vans hanging loosely in the walkway. "I would've bet he'd make it."

Sasuke shrugs. "Guess not," he says, pulling out one of his ear buds to better hear his friend, "What happened with Karin on Friday?"

Suigetsu's smug grin grows exponentially and Sasuke rolls his eyes. "Forget it. I don't wanna know," Sasuke says, and starts to put his ear bud back in.

"Whatever, man. You know you're interested. Don't you wanna know if the carpet matches the dra-"

* * *

Predictably, traffic is hell and theirs is the last bus to make it to the school parking lot. The Roman Numerals on the clock ( _"Those aren't even real numbers! How the hell am I supposed to read that?"_ some wise classmate once said) of Konoha High's front entrance say that they're ten minutes late. When has Sasuke ever not missed Homeroom?

Walking through the barren hallways almost feels like wading through fog. The familiar puke-green walls still have homecoming flyers from September pasted haphazardly across them. He knows exactly how many were there yesterday and how many will be on the floor by lunch time.

He's still a corridor away from Homeroom when he sees her. Strawberry hair in a corduroy jumper. She's reading one of those goddamned flyers, her nose practically pressed to the paper like the sheet hasn't been hanging there since the frickin dawn of time.

The dismissal bell rings and their eyes almost meet. He looks away before they can and a thousand students rush between them. 

* * *

"Hi," a feminine voice says directly into his ear. Sasuke jumps and whirls around in his seat to find wide green eyes staring directly into his. A large pink bubble emerges from the stranger-girl's vermillion lips, and the aroma of artificial watermelon swirls through the air in invisible twisting spirals.

Pop!

"-the fuck?" Sasuke grumbles as a speck of spittle hits him in the eyelid.

The girl's tongue darts out to collected her deflated gum and she leans in so close that their noses almost touch. "You dropped this," she says, and her face is quickly replaced by a first generation iPod Nano, turquoise ear buds wrapped tightly around.

A snarl rips from Sasuke's throat. "How did you get that?" he demands, tearing it from her tiny hand as the librarian goes Shh! somewhere behind him.

The stranger's hair is pink, Sasuke notices now that she's further than an inch away. An obnoxious, cotton candy pink. She frowns and throws her hands into a surrender. "Wow, touchy much?" she whispers, "I think I remember explaining that already, genius."

"I didn't drop it," Sasuke insists quietly, grabbing his messenger bag to safely tuck the mp3 player in the same zipper pocket he's always kept it. His defiant smirk fades as the device falls straight through a threadbare hole and into his lap.

"Hmm, of course you didn't," the girl says, stealing his smirk for herself. "You know, I could have been an asshole and kept it, but seeing as I didn't..."

Sasuke pulls his bag over his shoulder and slips the iPod into his breast pocket. "Yeah, good for you. You're a regular good samaritan," he replies, and starts to make his way out of the library.

But she keeps after him, even when he fails to hold the door open for her like a gentleman would. "And good samaritans deserve compensation, right?"

Sasuke sighs, increasing his pace. If these were normal school hours, it would be a cinch to lose her to the inhospitable crowd, but the hallways remain disappointingly empty during his time of need.

"A samaritan who asks to be rewarded for a generous deed isn't exactly deserving of the title, is she?" he says over his shoulder, counting the steps to the school's exit. Too many to escape conversation, he realizes with dismay.

The girl skips ahead, turning to smile in the face of his sour mood. "Haha, what a smart ass. I'm not asking for a million bucks, here. I just need a favor."

Sasuke finally stops trying to get away and stares her down. "That somehow sounds worse," he says, but finds that he's curious despite himself. And regardless of her intentions, Sasuke really does owe her for returning his iPod. "What is it?"

"I just need a few cans of spray paint. I'm not eighteen yet, and rumor has it that you are," she says seriously, staring right back at him.

Sasuke snorts, breaking eye-contact and continuing toward the exit. "You can't seriously think I have that kind of money," he says, and wrenches open the school's front door. After a moment's hesitation, he holds it open for her to pass through. She's going to keep following him, anyway.

"I already said I ain't gonna make you pay for anything. C'mon. We'll take my car," she insists, turning suddenly to the right, and waves him toward a key lime Jeep Wrangler.

Sasuke watches her retreating back and heaves another sigh. Might as well get this over with, he decides, and follows after.

 _END._

* * *

 ** _A/N:_** This was originally going to be a long-winded story where Sakura's goal is to relieve the monotony of Sasuke's depression-filled life, and show him that he can contribute to society (and the two of them befriend Naruto after they take care of his bully problem). The iPod belonged to Itachi, who died in what was wrongfully declared a homicide/suicide. I just couldn't do it, so here's what was written.

The next one-shot will be up before the end of the week!


	3. In Flames

In this universe, Naruto says, "Come home, Sasuke." It's a whisper and he's so tired he almost can't bear to breathe.

But Sasuke's the same. And even though he doesn't want to _(but maybe he does)_ he scrapes Naruto off the ground and they walk shoulder to shoulder back in the direction of their jilted home. The dirt clings to their bones, their blood bright on their skin, but then the rain is pouring and maybe, just _maybe_ Sasuke can believe he's being cleansed of his sins.

* * *

 _ **In Flames**_

 _ **by. Misery's-Toll**_

 _Come on, Come on_

 _Put your hands into the fire_

* * *

She's waiting at the gates with dew-drop eyes and dreams of rainbows and smiles and happy endings when they stumble free from the belly of the beast. The forest coughs them up with the mocking laugh of scorned leaves with a secret, and there they are, her boys, passed out on the ground with smiles on their faces that they hadn't meant to show.

And because she's only thirteen year-old Sakura, who never trained under the great Tsunade and now doesn't have the motivation, she doesn't heal them, doesn't get the chance to show Sasuke _this is what I've learned and doesn't that make you proud to call me your friend?_ Instead she finds her trustworthy protector Kakashi-sensei and sobs to him with nearly unintelligible words to please HELP. THEY'RE HOME. THEY'RE HURT.

* * *

 **The prodigal son returns.**

* * *

There's not even breathing room between recovery and interrogation. As far as Tsunade is concerned, they're the same thing. But Sasuke has learned his lesson. He cooperates and he gives up what little he can. But what does it really matter when the entire Sound Four is dead? It matters enough, Tsunade tells him. And then she tells him the truth.

He is detained much longer than anyone would have anticipated. But Sakura and Naruto and Kakashi are ready and waiting for him when he's finally let free.

Sakura gives him a hug and promises she meant what she said and Sasuke calls her annoying, but it doesn't sound right. His words aren't venomous, and Sakura takes this with a smile on her face. But what she doesn't realize is that it's still poisonous, and Naruto notices. Kakashi notices.

There's something wrong with Sasuke. There's a new darkness that wasn't there when they were beating the shit out of each other at the Valley of End. Naruto sees it in the smirk that's a bit too heavy. Kakashi sees it in the way he looks right through them.

Sasuke is planning his revenge.

* * *

 **Orochimaru wasn't the Pied Piper you needed saving from, was it Sasuke?**

* * *

Sasuke is working so hard. But they all are, in their own ways.

 _Think you can keep up, Bastard?_ Naruto will taunt, and Sasuke will respond, _I don't want to hear that from you, dead last._

They'll keep competing, because they're rivals _(because they're friends)_ and that's what they do. Naruto will keep pushing at Sasuke's buttons, not only to keep the motivation alive but to keep up the sense of normalcy, which is what Naruto thinks Sasuke may need more than anything.

Kakashi will keep grabbing missions for them, whether he thinks they're too easy or bordering on too hard. They need this, he knows it. Sasuke needs to feel that sense of peril, needs to watch his teammates in trouble and fight to protect them. He needs to see them in mundane situations, something to remind him _we're human, we're friends._

Sakura won't leave Sasuke alone. He needs company. It doesn't necessarily need to be her, it just needs to be somebody. One day when they're finally home from a mission that was long and hard and painful and _God, Sakura almost died today,_ Sasuke stops her when she and Naruto are heading home and Kakashi is heading to the Hokage Tower.

"I don't love you," he tells her. His eyes are hard and dark but at least they're seeing her. Their hard work might be paying off, but Sasuke still holds more hate in his heart than love.

"I know," she promises. Then they kiss.

* * *

 **Those who abandon their teammates are worse than scum, right?**

* * *

Months pass. Years pass. Of rainbows and smiles and there's really no need for endings is there?

Sakura is stronger. Maybe there's not that extra push to _get stronger, get stronger, or you'll never save Sasuke-kun!_ But there's a desire to protect her teammates. To not be a deadweight. To not be the reason their team doesn't make it.

She's not the best. But she's adequate. And maybe that's all she'll ever be, and she wishes she could say that she's okay with that, but she's not. She just can't figure out what it is that's missing. Why she can't break the jump between herself and her boys.

Sasuke told her he doesn't love her, and she won't delude herself into thinking that's not true. Even after years of stolen kisses and declarations of friendship and _I'll protect you_ s, she knows nothing's changed. Sasuke holds a secret.

 _I trust you_ , _Sasuke,_ she's told him countless times. But she's never ever heard _I trust you, too._ If she did, it would be better than any love confession. Because this isn't a love story, and she knows it. But she's still hoping for a happy ending, when the time comes.

* * *

 **I've suffered because I had those ties.**

* * *

The day the village burns, they were supposed to be out on missions. But maybe they realized that the intel Sasuke had given Tsunade led them on a wild goose chase. Maybe they realized something was wrong when Sasuke stayed behind. But when their home goes up in flames, they're not gone. They're not safe. He wanted them gone. He wanted them safe. Because they're his friend, lover, teacher and they're his important people.

The job is done and their world is dead. The village they'd sworn to protect, that Naruto was going to guide to greatness is dead.

When all is done, they find him in the forest.

 _Rasengan!_

 _Chidori!_

Naruto is hurt but Sasuke is mortally wounded. He bleeds out into the dirt that clings to his bones, and it gleams red on his flesh. Sakura tries to put Humpty Dumpty back together again, but she doesn't have the strength or the talent. She never found the something missing. She cries into the hole in his chest.

"I don't love you," he whispers to her when he almost can't bear to breathe.

"Liar," she says, and never lets go.

* * *

 _ **A/N:**_ I wrote this years ago. I don't remember how many, but quite a few because I was living with my parents at the time. So if it looks familiar, that's why!

I don't own "Into the Fire" by Thirteen Senses, from which the italicized headline at the top originates.

Please review! Number four will be up within the next few days.

-MT


	4. Sunkissed

**Sunkissed**

 **by. Misery's-Toll**

 **A/N:** I first wrote this one in 2009! Can you believe that? I wrote this in high school. And it's one of the very few angst-free fics that I've ever written. Actually I'm not sure if I've written any others. This came from a prompt, but I don't remember whose. I had to edit a lot of it because my spelling was atrocious.

Also this corresponds with the U.S. holiday of Independence Day, which was when the original version was posted. So for anyone who isn't familiar with how we celebrate it, basically it's an excuse to eat unhealthy food, sit on the grass, and watch fireworks.

 **Song Inspiration:** "Hands Down" by Dashboard Confessionals

* * *

The sky is pink-purple-blue clouds of fluff, crickets chirping, geese quacking. It's summer, it's warm, it's flushed-heat, hair-stuck-to-the-back-of-your-neck perspiration and swimming and music and little kids running and tripping but laughing because it's the fourth of July.

Sakura picks at the grass, glancing at her best friend. Ino's sprawled on their quilt reading a magazine, smacking a piece of watermelon gum. Sugar-free, of course. Sakura points her toes, listening to the joints crack before she pulls her legs towards her, leaning her head on her knees.

"Do you want to go get snow cones?" she asks, crinkling the fabric of the quilt between her fingers. Her nails are red. Bright-red. Cherry Rain red. Fourth of July red _(white and blue)_. She momentarily thinks of repainting them. Ino brought nail polish. She brought her whole make-up bag. And it doesn't seem like Ino intends on moving any time soon. Not while the sun's still out and she can still work on her tan.

"No thanks, Forehead! I've still got three pounds to lose before that audition. Pure sugar-syrup isn't going to get me any closer to that," Ino replies with a loud pop of her gum. She flips another page in her magazine, and Sakura spots a bronze-colored model and a list of this season's accessories. The blonde gazes starstruck at the spread for a moment, before flipping her head around and asking, "Wanna get me a diet Coke?"

"Sure thing, Pig." Sakura slips on her flip-flops. Pink. The same pink as the quilt. A tad lighter shade than her hair, than the sky.

The grass tickles her heels with each step. This isn't the golf course, after all. This is the hill overlooking the golf course where her mom and dad are finishing up some final rounds, having left Sakura and her friend with a picnic basket full of baked goods, sandwich wraps, and fruits and salads. But not diet Cokes and not sickly-sweet snow cones that Sakura wants despite the fact that she should probably show solidarity with Ino.

She waits in line, rocking back and forth from the balls of her feet to her heels, the grass crinkling beneath her bare toes.

"Can't you stand still?"

She turns around. A tall boy a little younger than her stands, a cool expression on his face and his hands stuffed in his pockets. She thinks she'd probably blush if it weren't for the fact her cheeks are already red-stained from the sun. She didn't bring sunscreen. Sunscreen prevents a much needed tan, according to Ino.

"Oh, Sasuke. Am I bothering you?" she asks, "I'm pretty sure that this is a public event, meaning that we can all do as we please, and that includes fidgeting as I wait. Feel free to walk somewhere else."

She's not sure where the attitude stems from. Maybe from the heat, or the annoyance at Ino's nonchalance, or maybe irritation towards having to wait in an excessively long line when suddenly _Uchiha Sasuke_ decides to show up out of nowhere when Sakura is so totally not sexy at the moment! Not that she cares. After all, you definitely do _not_ have to look sexy for your ex-boyfriend, right?

"This is a country club. Nothing's _public._ " He smirks, his lips twisting attractively into a form they most definitely inhabit quite often.

Sakura narrows her eyes and growls, "You know what I mean!"

"Do I?" he shrugs slightly, plainly looking at her with smug grey-black eyes. They're unspecial and slightly dull, but somehow the simplicity is refreshing. Something different from the cliche green-specked hazel eyes from an oh-so-charming movie-screen boy. And that is quite possibly what makes him so stunningly beautiful, Sakura notes irritably.

She groans before spinning away from him, just to see that the line has moved up quite a bit. She trots a few yards to catch up, and murmurs angrily to herself upon finding a few people have moved in front of her.

"How'd you get in, anyway? I thought only annoyingly rich people got into these things," the boy behind her continues, ignoring her irate grumbling.

"Guess what, bro? I'm annoyingly rich."

"I was always under the impression that you were just annoying," he says pompously as she turns halfway to keep both an eye on him and the line ahead.

She bites her lip and quips, "Not everyone can be so widely known that no one even has to even ask you your name, much less ask how you got in here."

"Oh, well I'm sure people can tell by looking at you that you're the Beanie-Os girl."

When he put it like that it did sound kind of completely ridiculous. Her father was the inventor of the popular snack Beanie-Os. A bean-paste flavored cereal. Why were they having this conversation, again?

"Well you sure completely lack a tan for someone who _owns_ the country club," she rolls her eyes, covering her sudden intimidation with Ino-like behavior.

"This is the one event I let myself be dragged to yearly. For nostalgic purposes alone," Sasuke says, "But you know that."

Sakura finally reaches the front of the line and fully turns away from Sasuke, equating his annoyance to a mosquito. She tells the vendor, "I'd like a large diet Coke and a medium cherry snow cone please."

"Isn't that a little much sugar for one person?" Sasuke comments, crossing his arms.

Sakura chooses to ignore him, and grabs a wad of bills from her pocket. The man behind the counter hands her the beverage and the dessert, and as she moves to hand him the dollar bills, Sasuke intercepts, handing over his own money instead.

"Thanks," Sasuke says dryly to the man, guiding the open-mouthed Sakura away from the stand. He leans his head down to murmur to her, "You're holding up the line."

Suddenly feeling very uncomfortable, and not so pompous or irritated at the boy, she finds interest in the not-quite golf-material grass. "Umm...thanks," she replies, "But I could have gotten it- Hey! Wait! You didn't buy anything! Why'd you wait in that long line?"

He chuckles a deep, throaty sound that warms her stomach, and replies, "I didn't. I was just heading in that direction at the same speed as the line."

"Wha-" she starts but finds that Sasuke is already walking away, in the direction of the country club compound.

She lets out a half-grumbled sigh before walking back towards the quilt, thinking she should probably get the soda to her friend before all the ice melts. After all, Ino is probably quite restless now that the sky is a muddled shade of navy blue and the sun is most definitely gone.

When she gets to the blanket, Ino is hotly kissing a dark-haired boy Sakura's never seen before. Sakura's parents recline a few yards away on their own blanket, happily ignoring the couple as they munch on their own sandwiches.

Sakura clears her throat and interrupts, "Um, Ino. I brought your drink."

Ino breaks away from the boy she's half straddling and gives Sakura a bright smile. "Oh, Sakura! You were gone for forever so I went to look for you and I met Sai. He doesn't talk much but he's super cute and a really good kisser!"

Sakura stares at Sai blankly. "Uhh, Ino, you have a boyfriend."

Ino shrugs. "Yeah, but we're totally on break right now, so this doesn't even count as cheating. Now gimme my pop."

Sakura hands Ino the paper cup, and asks uncertainly, "Uhh..do you guys want privacy? I can leave."

Ino smiles demurely, "While it's not necessary, I think you should. After all, there's a hot guy staring at you at 12:00."

Sakura wrinkles her brow. "My 12:00 or your 12:00?"

"Which 12:00 do you think? Have you _seen_ me turn my head all the way around?"

"Oh. Right," Sakura says, and peeks over her shoulder to see Sasuke staring at her with a raised eyebrow, "Ino! You know who that is!"

Ino throws back her head and laughs, almost too glamorously for real life, probably just spicing it up for Sai so that he'll become even more charmed by her feminine wiles. Though now that Sakura really looks at the boy, it seems that he's totally indifferent. Ino sure can pick 'em.

"So what? He's a totally hot piece of man-candy and you'd better go over there and get him all hot and sweaty for you, because you two are like peanut-butter and jelly. When you're together you're unbearably gooey, but meant for each other."

"Wow, Ino. That was almost poetic." Sakura rolls her eyes before she walks toward the Uchiha country club poster boy.

With the fading light, Sasuke almost seems to disappear. But Sakura knows she will always be able to pick him out of a crowd, even if it were pitch black. She knows Sasuke can read her thoughts when he greets her with a smirk.

"Sit with me," he says.

Sakura, affronted, replies, "Why should I?"

The boy pulls a round object from his pocket. A peach. He offers it to her.

Moisture gathers on Sakura's lower lashes at the implications of this gesture.

"You're carrying fruit in your pockets? That's a little weird, even for you, Sasuke," she smiles and licks the salty tears that gather in her dimples. They taste sweet and Sakura wonders if tears of happiness are sweeter than tears of sadness. Because she remembers the post break-up tears being much more bitter.

"What's weird is that we have apology fruit."

"You're a bastard," Sakura laughs, but walks with him towards his own plotted area. A dark blue blanket the color of the sky, sits perfectly squared on the grass. "What exactly are you apologizing for?"

 ** _*Pop.*_**

He doesn't respond even after they're both seated. She stares at him expectantly until she notices that he's staring at the untouched snow cone in her hands. She eats a spoonful of it without tasting it and sets the cup down in the grass, well aware that she might as well be sacrificing it to the hovering bees and the mayflies that have already ravaged her. She rolls the peach uncertainly between her hands, vaguely aware that the fireworks have started.

 _ ***Pop. Pop.***_

"I had the chance to explain things to you. But I didn't take it. Right after...it happened. If I hadn't been so...stubborn... You could have heard it from me and not the tabloids."

"Would you have told me? Eventually?"

A short silence follows after.

 _ ***Pop. Pop. Pop.***_

"Had I been thinking more logically, as I should have been, then I would have known that you would trust me when I told you that Karin kissed me and that I did not kiss her. You are too good and too trusting and I should have used that," he says, trailing off.

"I only give trust to those I think deserve it. The only thing I was upset by was that it wasn't you who told me. I thought I could trust that I could at least _know_ that someone was trying to steal my boyfriend."

 _ ***Pop.***_

"And," Sasuke says, pulling another peach from a picnic basket beside him, "I'm apologizing for breaking up with you afterward. I thought I deserved it."

 _ ***Pop. Pop.***_

"Like I said, you're a bastard," Sakura laughs, "Does this mean we can get back together?"

"If you'll take me."

He's still stoic and handsome as ever, but somehow it's the look he gives her that lets her know _he's sorry_. And that he loves her despite the fact that it's completely ridiculous that they apologize with fruit and that she makes him talk too much and that she just wasted a snow cone he paid for.

 _ ***Pop.***_

Sakura nods.

 _ ***Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop.***_

And then they kiss, the first firework finale beginning. And Sakura doesn't have the mind to process that this is cliche and totally against her regulations because Sasuke completely wipes all thought from her mind, and all that exists is _Sasuke, Sasuke, Sasuke._

 _ ***Popopopopop!***_

He leans his forehead against hers, his breath gently fanning over her face. "I've gone far too long without that."

"Happy Independence Day."

She pulls away and bites into the peach.

* * *

 **A/N:** the prompt was "You're carrying fruit in your pockets? That's a little weird, even for you."

I hope you enjoyed the fanfiction! It was interesting to me to reread it, because it feels so different from anything I'd write today. It makes me kinda want to write some more lighthearted things.

Please review, if you'd like!

-MT


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